


On This Side of the Door

by Transposable_Element



Series: Life After Narnia [1]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Corpses, Friends of Narnia, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Sexual Harassment, The Problem of Susan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-30
Updated: 2014-05-30
Packaged: 2018-01-27 03:13:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1712852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Transposable_Element/pseuds/Transposable_Element
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>April, 1949. Susan Pevensie and her Uncle Harold go to the railway station in Reading.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On This Side of the Door

The news came piecemeal. First came the wire from the railway, saying that Peter had been killed. Susan told herself it had to be some kind of mistake—for one thing, why would they wire her, instead of their parents? She was just going down to the phone on the second floor landing to ring her parents when a wire came from Uncle Harold, asking her to telephone him right away. So she rang her uncle instead, and as soon as she heard him pick up the receiver, she asked, “Is it about Peter?” But her uncle had heard nothing about Peter. She stood there in shock as he told her that Lucy was probably dead: Eustace and Lucy had been traveling together; Eustace’s body had been identified (like Peter, he was carrying ID); and the railway said that everybody in the compartment with him had been killed. Nothing was certain yet, her uncle said, but it didn’t look good. And that wasn’t the end of it. Poor Uncle Harold had spent ages that afternoon trying to get hold of Susan’s parents. Eventually he talked to one of their neighbors, who told him they’d taken the train to Bristol that morning. When he rang Bristol he found they’d never arrived at any of the places where they were expected. It was beginning to seem likely that they’d been on the same damned train. Susan thought of her telegram. If the railway hadn’t been able to reach her parents, it made more sense. That was when she remembered that Edmund had been traveling with Peter—and surely he would have wired her by now if he were all right. Susan stood there in the hallway, helplessly gripping the telephone receiver and turning her face away whenever somebody passed her on the way up or down the stairs. Eventually her flat mate, Diana, convinced her to ring off and come upstairs. It was late, and there was nothing more to be done until the morning.

Early the next morning Uncle Harold drove down from Cambridge to collect her. Diana, who had sat up with her all night, went to bed, and Susan and her uncle drove to the railway station in Reading. She was glad that Aunt Alberta hadn’t come, and felt guilty for being glad. But Alberta was difficult under the best of circumstances, and having to cope with her now would be a nightmare. Uncle Harold said she was at home with a friend to look after her. Her psychiatrist had prescribed a sedative. “She’s just coming out of one of her manic periods,” he said. “Lord knows what this will do to her.”

Susan vaguely remembered that Uncle Harold had said something about phoning the Poles, so she asked if he’d spoken to Jill’s parents. “Yes,” he said, shortly. After a moment he added, “It was even worse than I expected. I thought it might be better coming from me, but…I should have let the railway phone them.”

Other than that, they didn’t talk much.

When they reached the railway station, Susan avoided looking at the remains of the train still being cleared away from the track. A railway agent directed them to a shed behind the ticketing office. For a moment Susan was afraid that they were going to walk right into the room where all the bodies were laid out, but instead they found themselves in a waiting room, or rather, an office that had been hastily converted into a waiting room. Desks and filing cabinets had been pushed to the edges of the room, and a motley collection of chairs—clearly, all the chairs the railway could find on short notice—were arranged haphazardly in the middle. Nearly all the people waiting had grim expressions on their faces, and some were weeping. A few people were talking, but in whispers. They were obviously in the right place. She and Uncle Harold found two seats together and sat without speaking.

After a little while a door in the opposite wall opened, and a middle aged man and woman came out. He was holding her elbow, and they were both looking wan. The woman shakily lowered herself into a chair. “Breathe,” said the man, crouching in front of her. “Just take a deep breath….That’s it…You’ll be all right….”

A young man with a clipboard stepped through the doorway and said “Um, Poor—Poraka…?” A dark-faced man stood up. “Purakayastha,” he said wearily, and they disappeared through the door. When they came out again about 10 minutes later, Uncle Harold got up and spoke to the man with the clipboard. “He says it may be a while before they call us,” he told Susan. “I’m going to the lavatory. Will you be all right here by yourself?”

“Yes, of course,” she said. But only a minute or two after he left, a man sat down next to her. He was about 25, sandy-haired and rumpled. He smelled of beer. “You can’t sit there, that’s my uncle’s seat,” she said bluntly. She hadn’t slept, and her nerves were raw.

The man didn’t seem to have heard. “I’m here to identify my aunt…ghastly business,” he said, grimacing. He glanced at her, then turned and looked her up and down. His scowl disappeared. “David Plummer,” he said, holding out his right hand.

She almost mentioned that she knew Miss Plummer, but she didn’t want to encourage him, so she said nothing and ignored the hand. Uncle Harold would turn him out of the seat when he got back.

“Oh, come now, no need to be unfriendly,” said Plummer. “You’re too pretty to look so glum.”

She knew it would be better to ignore him, but she couldn’t help saying coldly, “I have every reason to look ‘glum’ right now.”

“Well, we all have to come to it, love. And _I_ say we ought to take what comfort we can while we’re _alive_. If you need a shoulder to cry on, just say the word. I’d be happy to oblige.” He attempted a wink.

She stared at him, appalled. His words were slurred, but his meaning was clear. She had plenty of experience fending off drunks, but right now she was too exhausted to think what to do. He tried to put a hand on her knee and she pushed it away. “Leave me alone!” she said.

“Spitfire,” he said. “I like that.” It seemed that whatever she said or did, he would take it as encouragement.

“Leave her be, mate,” said a firm voice. Susan looked up. The speaker was a tall, confident-looking woman with short dark hair. She was standing in front of Plummer with her feet slightly apart, fists on her hips. She was clearly more than a match for him, be he drunk or sober.

“Now see here, it’s none of your—” Plummer began.

The woman took hold of his arm and hauled him to his feet. Then she marched him across the room and pushed him into a seat between two men. “You’ll stay right there if you know what’s good for you,” she said. He collapsed, muttering. Susan could see her rescuer talking in a low tone to one of the men now flanking Plummer. The man looked across the room at Susan and nodded his head.

A moment later, the woman returned. “I can’t thank you enough,” said Susan.

“Somebody had to do something, and you look done in. Those two fellows will make sure he doesn’t bother anybody else,” she said. “I’m Peggy Pole,” she added.

“Susan Pevensie,” said Susan, as they shook hands. “Are you Jill’s…” she hesitated. The woman looked about 30, a little old to be Jill’s sister, but far too young to be her mother. “Aunt?” she finished.

“Sister-in-law. My husband was the baby of the family for 16 years, then along came Jill—I think she must have been a change of life baby.” She sighed. “My in-laws are frail, so Richard and I came down here to take care of everything.”

“Well, it’s lucky for me you were here, Mrs. Pole. I—”

“Oh, do call me Peggy,” she interrupted.

“Then I’m Susan. I do envy how tough—I mean, um, oh dear…”

Peggy smiled. “If you think I’m tough, you should see my sister. We were both Wrens during the war, and she’s making a career of it….Oh—” Her face fell. “You must be Lucy’s sister! I’m _so_ sorry! I only met her the once, but I could see she was really something special.”

“Yes…And my brothers were on the platform…” Susan blurted out. She seemed to be choking up, so she tried to clear her throat. “And we think my parents were on the train as well…”

“Oh my God! I hadn’t heard that!” said Peggy. “Are you here all alone?”

“No, my uncle’s with me, but he went to the lavatory. I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”

“You’d better come sit with me and Richard until your uncle comes back. I’m afraid I have a habit of chattering, but if it bothers you, just tell me to stow it,” said Peggy. Susan went with her gratefully. Peggy introduced her to Richard, whom she would have recognized anyway by his resemblance to Jill. They had the same narrow features and gray eyes, and the same watchful air. He seemed composed, but when Peggy sat down next to him he gripped her hand.

They didn’t say much about why they were there. Peggy did chatter, but it was soothing, in a way. She and Richard had just come from a holiday with Peggy’s mother in the Lake District, and she talked about things that ordinarily would have interested Susan: sailing, swimming, camping out. She said she had heard that Susan was an expert archer. Susan didn’t feel much like talking, but she did tell Peggy she’d once given Jill some archery tips (not mentioning that Jill had been rather rude about it).

After a few minutes of this, Uncle Harold returned. He looked a trifle wary when the Poles introduced themselves, but then Richard said “I’m sorry my father was so awful to you on the telephone. It’s the shock, I’m sure you can understand. Jill should have told my parents she was taking a different train back to school—it’s not your fault that you knew about it and they didn’t….”

Uncle Harold swallowed. “Thank you,” he said, sitting down. He looked dead tired.

The crowd in the waiting room was starting to thin out. Miss Plummer’s horrid nephew was called, and when he came out again he immediately lurched outside. They could hear him being sick, and Susan couldn’t help but feel he deserved it, though she wished she didn’t have to listen to it. Susan didn’t know Miss Plummer well, and the old lady had made her dislike of Susan clear almost from the moment they met, but she felt sorry that the only relation they could find to identify her was such an ass.

Eventually, she and Uncle Harold and the Poles were the only ones left in the waiting room. They were all quiet, even Peggy. Then the man with the clipboard took Richard and Peggy through the door. Susan knew she would have to pass through that door soon, and she dreaded it. She didn’t want to think of what was on the other side. For some reason the door itself seemed horrible, a mouth that engulfed people and chewed them up—and then spit them out, battered and broken.

The Poles came out after a few minutes. There was a tear on Peggy’s cheek, and Richard had the stiff face of someone who is struggling to maintain control. Susan was about to speak to them when the man with the clipboard said, “Uh, Mr. Scrubb, Miss Pevensie, we’re ready for you now.” He seemed more solicitous than he had been with the others. Susan wondered what made them special.

Peggy was whispering to Richard. Then she turned to Susan. “Shall we wait for you?” she asked. Susan nodded silently and followed her uncle through the door.

The room was larger than she expected—the shed hadn’t looked very big from the outside. Or maybe it was just that there were so many bodies, fifty or more. The bodies were lying on trestle tables, draped in sheets. Some of the sheets had blood on them. There was a strong smell of carbolic soap.

The man with the clipboard conferred briefly in whispers with a man in a white coat. Then they turned to Susan and her uncle. “I’m Michael Malone, with the railway,” said the man with the clipboard, “and this is Clive Parker, the coroner’s assistant. I’m awfully sorry to have to put you through this. We’ve left you for last because you have more…persons to identify than anybody else. If you feel ill, or you want a breath of air, please just say so. Nobody will think less of you, and it won’t help anybody if you faint in here.”

She nodded. “I’ll do my best.”

Malone looked at his clipboard and started to speak, but Uncle Harold stopped him. “I’d like to see my son first,” he said. “Do you mind, Susan?”

“Of course not,” she said.

Parker led them over to a table. He looked at Uncle Harold, who nodded. Parker pulled back the sheet. There was Eustace. His face had been badly cut up by flying glass.

“Yes,” said her uncle, after a moment. “That’s my boy.” Susan took her uncle’s hand. She had never been fond of Eustace; had, in fact, thought him a terrible pest, even after Lucy and Edmund spent the summer with him and swore that he’d improved. He was the sort to carry ID just so he could refuse to show it to the authorities. But her uncle’s voice sounded so bleak. She felt tears starting and blotted her eyes with a handkerchief. After a moment Parker pulled the sheet back over Eustace’s face. Her uncle looked down, drew a deep breath, and then let go Susan’s hand and rubbed his face. He and Malone spent a couple of minutes fussing with paperwork. Uncle Harold kept clearing his throat, but he didn’t seem about to break down.

Finally, Malone turned to her again. “Before we look at your relations, Miss Pevensie, there’s someone else we’d like you to identify, if you don’t mind. Mr. Scrubb told us that a Professor Kirke was traveling with his son and your sister, but we haven’t been able to find any of the man’s family.”

“I don’t think he had any,” said Susan.

“I never met him,” said Uncle Harold. “So you’ll have to be the one, Susan.”

“All right,” she said. Parker led her over to another table and, after glancing at her for permission, pulled back the sheet. The left side of the professor’s head was a bloody mess, and his face was bruised and scraped, but he was quite recognizable. She had once been very fond of him, but when she got to be about 15 he had started to behave very differently toward her—formal and distant. She suspected it was because he wasn’t comfortable with her once she started growing up into a woman. Perhaps that wasn’t it, though, because a year or two ago she’d asked Lucy if the professor had started to treat her differently now that she was growing up, and Lucy had stared at her as though she was mad. Whatever the reason for the change, though, it hurt. “That’s Professor Kirke,” she said, shortly. Malone gave her some papers and showed her where to sign.

Her uncle drew a deep breath and rubbed his face again. “Do you want me to look at the rest of them, Susan? There’s really no need for you to subject yourself to this,” he said. “And I’m past the worst now…” he added.

“You might just as well say that _you_ don’t need to subject yourself to this because _I_ can identify them,” said Susan. “Besides, I want to see them,” Did she, really? If she didn’t look at their faces, she could go on imagining that the whole thing was a tremendous mistake, at least for a little while longer. But no, she had to do it.

“Well then, we’ll look at them together,” said Uncle Harold.

Parker led them to the next body. “We’ve tentatively identified this as Miss Pevensie,” he said to Susan.

“Lucy?”

“Yes.”

“Is she…all cut up, like Eustace was?” Susan asked nervously.

“No,” Parker said. “She’s not. That’s why we thought we’d show her to you first.”

Susan nodded, and he lifted the sheet. Lucy’s hair was tangled, and her blue eyes were closed.

“What happened to her?” Susan whispered. “There’s barely a mark on her.”

“She snapped her neck,” said Parker. “Quick and painless, if that’s any comfort to you.”

“Yes, it is, actually. Thank you….” The idea of Lucy suffering was especially awful—Lucy, who was always so aware of others’ suffering, and always ready to help. If she’d survived the accident she would have been the first to jump up and start tying tourniquets, carrying stretchers, comforting the injured. Whatever needed doing. Susan took a step closer. “Is it all right if I touch her?” she asked. Parker nodded, so she kissed Lucy’s cold cheek and smoothed back her hair. For years Susan had taken care of Lucy—making the boys slow down to let her catch up, teaching her to swim, giving her advice about bullies at school. And then a few years ago Lucy started taking care of Susan, mediating between her and the rest of the family. Lucy didn’t give up on people easily, and she was the only one in the family who had never seemed to give up on Susan. She doggedly took the train down to London to visit every few weeks, over their father’s objections. And so she was the last member of the family Susan had seen alive, three weeks ago. They had a friendly, sisterly afternoon together, walking around central London to look at the new buildings that were going up everywhere, gossiping about mutual friends. It was a few days before Susan’s birthday, and Lucy insisted on splurging on a posh afternoon tea to celebrate. Lucy told her all about Edmund’s dreadful new girlfriend, and they both giggled so much that a lady at a nearby table gave them a reproving look, which made them giggle even more.

Uncle Harold gave her a handkerchief and it was only then that she realized there were tears streaming down her face. The men gave her a moment to mop them up, and then Malone had her sign more papers. “How are you doing?” he asked. She realized that he’d been hovering over her, virtually ignoring her uncle.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“We’ve tentatively identified Mr. and Mrs. Pevensie, based on Mr. Scrubb’s descriptions. Are you sure you don’t want to take a breather before we look at them?” There was a note in his voice that made her wonder whether he’d be so concerned about her if she were fat and forty.

“No, I’m fine so far, really,” she said, as firmly as she could.

“You’re being very brave,” he said. She almost asked him whether he’d said that to anybody else that day. Uncle Harold had just looked at the bloody face of his only child, and he was holding himself together better than she was—his behavior through all of this had been nothing short of heroic! But she stopped herself in time. There was no point in antagonizing Malone—and for what, for being too nice to her? This was one time when she was perfectly willing to accept special consideration. Maybe she just seemed especially pathetic or fragile. But if it was because of her looks…well, what did it matter?

Her mother’s face, like Eustace’s, was quite cut up by flying glass. She must have been sitting next to the window. “The men on the scene thought at first they might be able to save her,” said Malone. “But she’d lost too much blood. They wanted you to know that they did try….”

Uncle Harold looked down at his sister for a long moment. “You’re just about the only family I’ve got left now, Susan,” he said, putting an arm around her. Susan nodded. By the summer of 1918, Jane and Harold Scrubb had lost their three older brothers, two in the First World War and one to the Spanish influenza. Their mother, too, died of the flu, leaving 16-year-old Jane to run the household for her father and Harold, then only 9. Susan had never really thought much about what this must have been like for her mother. It had all happened so long ago. Now Susan wished she had asked about it; but her mother had never seemed to want to discuss it. Her attitude was that the past was past. Mother was the same way about little Simon, the baby who died of whooping cough when Susan was seven. Nobody ever spoke of him. Until this morning, Susan hadn’t thought of her baby brother in years and had almost forgotten he ever existed. She couldn’t imagine consigning Lucy and Ed and Peter, or her parents, to the dead past like that.

Her father had come from a large family, but the war and the influenza had left their mark on it as well. Apart from Uncle Harold, the only close relations Susan had left were two aunts and some cousins on her father’s side, none of whom she knew well. Aunt Helen had married an American and gone to live in the States years before Susan was born, and Aunt Alice had emigrated to Australia when Susan was very small. She and her uncle had never been very close—Susan knew Lucy was his favorite niece—but now… “I’m very glad you’re here with me, Uncle Harold,” she said. He gave her a squeeze.

Her father’s face wasn’t so badly marked, but she noticed that Parker was very careful not to pull the sheet back further than his chin. She was surprised by the intense surge of anger she felt as she looked at him. Their last conversation, on her 21st birthday, had been a fiasco. He told her she was wasting her youth, and that she ought to think about going to university after all. Well, if he’d wanted her to go to university he ought to have encouraged her more when she was still in school! He hadn’t, so what did he expect? But she knew exactly what he expected of her. She was pretty and (everybody said) “no good at school,” so obviously her job was to get married. To someone suitable—one of Peter’s Oxford friends, perhaps. _Not_ live in a flat in London getting up to God knows what. She assured him over and over that she wasn’t doing anything scandalous: she worked at her job and she went to a few parties. She’d had boyfriends, but that didn’t make her a scarlet woman. She had never given her father any reason to distrust her. Finally she lost her temper and asked, “Why don’t you just call me a tart and be done with it?” Then he calmed down and said that of course he would never say that—but with enough hesitation in his voice that she knew she’d struck a nerve. He’d passed the phone to Mother, who fussed and dithered and said that her father only wanted what was best for her. Mother wouldn’t disagree with him, of course, she never did. Susan wondered what had happened to the strength of will her mother must have had, at 16, to carry on. Susan hadn’t seen any evidence of it for at least ten years.

When Parker drew the sheet up again she caught a glimpse of a massive gash slanting down from her father’s neck almost to the collarbone. She felt a wash of guilt for being so angry, but the anger remained.

Susan thought she was inured to the gore by now. This was awful, but she was holding herself together. Then Malone said “I’m afraid we’ve saved the worst for last. The people standing on the platform got quite badly tossed about—dragged and so on. Are you sure you don’t want to take a moment before you look?”

She shook her head. “I think we’d best just get it over with,” she said.

“You don’t absolutely have to look at your older brother,” Malone said. “He was carrying his ID. But we’d like you to confirm his identity, if you’re up to it.”

“Yes, of course.”

So they showed her Peter. Again, Parker was careful when he pulled back the sheet. He arranged it before he let her come up close, and he only showed her part of Peter’s face—one eye, and his nose, mouth, and chin, with the sheet held down firmly over the rest. She tried not to think of what he might be hiding from her.

Her last conversation with Peter had also been difficult. But she was more sad and guilty than angry about it, because she knew she was as much to blame as Peter, whose approval she craved even more than her father’s. They’d spoken on the phone just a few days ago. He and Ed were going to be in London and they wanted to try to meet her. She was busy with something or other and said she wasn’t sure she’d have time. And then he started lecturing her about Narnia. Narnia! Why did he torment himself by dwelling on it? Peter hated the modern world, especially after his stint in the army, but there was no escaping it. Narnia might as well have been a dream; sometimes she found it was easier to pretend it _had_ been a dream. Or a game. “You’ll have to learn to live in _this_ world, Peter, because we’re never going back!” she told him. And then—

“The last time I spoke to him we quarreled, and I rang off without saying good-bye….” she said.

“I’m sure he knew you loved him,” said Uncle Harold. Susan didn’t have any real doubt of it, either, but that wasn’t the point. Once they had been so close, and she didn’t understand why or when that had changed. She signed the papers, blinking back more tears.

Malone was looking distinctly uncomfortable now. “Your younger brother—there are three young men about the right age who still haven’t been identified. That’s another reason we kept you waiting—we were hoping that someone else would identify them and spare you having to look.”

The first two were strangers. They were easier to look at, even though the second one was pretty badly mangled. The third had to be Edmund. From the look Parker and Malone exchanged, Susan guessed that they’d kept him for last because he was in the worst shape, and they didn’t want to make her look at him unless she absolutely had to. It _would_ be Ed, to get so badly battered, she thought. He always seemed to take more punishment than any of the rest of them. As a child he’d been terribly accident-prone. Peter had once joked that it was jolly decent of him to take all the injuries that ought to be spread among the four of them.

Parker didn’t show her even part of his face, just pulled back the sheet enough for her to look at his hair. Yes, that was Ed’s hair: chestnut and curly, recognizable even when most of it was matted with blood.

“Does he have any identifying marks?” Parker asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Scars, birthmarks, tattoos…”

She almost laughed. Ed, with a tattoo? She cleared her throat. “An appendisectomy,” she said.

“Can you describe the scar?”

“It’s on the left, of course—or no, sorry, the left side as you’re looking at him, that would be his right side. L-shaped. It’s a pretty bad scar, long and sort of…ropey, and red. Mother and Father were quite annoyed with the surgeon for doing such a sloppy job, but Ed’s rather….” She stopped.

“Rather what?”

Ed’s rather proud of it. Or was. “It doesn’t matter,” she said.

Parker asked her to stand back, so she couldn’t see anything while he lifted the sheet to look at the scar. “A scar consistent with her description,” he murmured to Malone, who jotted something down.

“Anything else? Ideally, we need three points of identification in cases like this.”

Susan racked her brains. With all those injuries he ought to have a few scars… “Well, he has a scar from a smallpox vaccination,” she said “A funny heart-shaped one.”

“Left upper arm?”

“Yes.”

Parker spent quite a long time adjusting the sheet and then finally called her over to look at the arm. The way Parker was holding the sheet, it was obvious that the arm wasn’t attached to the rest of Ed’s body. Her gorge rose. She turned away for a moment and fought back her sudden nausea.

“Susan,” said Uncle Harold. “Let me.”

“Would you recognize the scar if you saw it?” she asked.

“Probably not,” he admitted.

She took a deep breath and turned again to look. There was the scar, like a lopsided heart. She let out the breath she’d been holding. “That’s it…That’s my brother…” Parker quickly covered the arm with the sheet.

“A lady who was on the platform said a young man stepped in front of her and pushed her out of the way,” said Malone. “From her description, we think it may have been your brother.”

“That sounds like Ed,” she said. Always trying to make up for past sins.

“The lady’s very grateful. She got away with a broken arm and some scrapes. A war widow with two children….”

Susan stared at him, wondering if he was embroidering, trying to play up the hero angle. A war widow, really? That was laying it on a bit thick. Well, it didn’t matter: Ed had finally succeeded in sacrificing himself. Damn you, Ed, you idiot! You could have thought of me…

She signed the last set of papers. Malone started asking about where she wanted them to transport the bodies for burial. She looked at him blankly. “I’ve no idea,” she said. She hadn’t even thought about it. But now she realized: funerals, burials, so many people to write or wire or telephone to tell them what had happened. Her aunts. All of her parents friends, and Lucy’s and…And there would be more to do after that—clothes, letters, her parents’ house and furniture—but she couldn’t bear to think about it…Malone said she needn’t decide today and started to tell her how to reach him when she knew where the burials would be. But she wasn’t listening carefully. The full weight of what she’d seen was descending on her, and she didn’t know whether she was responding appropriately, or at all. Her uncle put an arm around her again and when she looked up, they were back in the waiting room.

Peggy and Richard were waiting for them. They stood up, and nobody said anything for a moment.

“Grog all around?” suggested Peggy. “I could use a drink.”

“I haven’t had a drink in 15 years, but I wouldn’t say no to one now,” said Uncle Harold. “Don’t tell Alberta,” he added, to Susan.

“I’m not sure where we’d get anything this time of day,” said Richard.

“We could ask that David Plummer, if he’s still here,” said Susan, and then choked on a laugh. The laugh turned into a sob.

They were all dead. She’d known that was possible last night, after talking to Uncle Harold. But in a corner of her mind she had been hoping that one of them, any of them—no, not any of them, Lucy—was still alive somewhere, miraculously. Maybe she had gotten off the train at an earlier station, or taken a different train altogether. But Susan couldn’t tell herself that any more; she had seen them, all of them. She even knew that was Ed in there, though she hadn’t seen his face.

Whatever resources she’d been using to hold herself together deserted her. She began crying, wailing, keening, and she didn’t care who saw or heard. Somebody helped her sit down, and she cried for a long time.

Finally she found she’d cried herself out, for the time being. She sat up, feeling drained and weary. Peggy was sitting next to her, gently rubbing her upper back, and Richard and her uncle were over at the far end of the room, talking quietly. From the look of it, Uncle Harold had been crying, too. She scrubbed her face with Peggy’s handkerchief. “I just met you this morning, and you’re practically my best friend,” she said.

“A new friend sounds like a fine idea to me,” said Peggy. “Friends are one of the best things in life. Maybe _the_ best….”

Malone came in, bringing a cup of tea from the cafe in the station. A cup of tea: the cure for all ills. “I didn’t know if you take sugar, so I brought this just in case,” he said, handing her a twist of paper. She thanked him and emptied the sugar into her tea. He smiled at her apologetically and looked as though he wanted to say something else. But whatever it was, he didn’t say it. He nodded and went back into the other room. She watched as the door swung shut behind him. Her family was on the other side of that door. She was on this side, and she would have to find a way to go on.

**Author's Note:**

> This piece owes an obvious debt to Neil Gaiman's story. I have only skimmed the "Problem of Susan" fanfic here, not wanting to be overly influenced by it.
> 
> I would appreciate any comments from English readers on idiom errors, especially class or regional blunders.
> 
> As far as I can tell, people in the UK didn't routinely carry ID in 1949, unless they had a driver's license (which most of these characters probably would not). The government tried to institute a national ID system a couple of times during the first half of the 20th century, but it wasn't very successful, even when tied to the rationing system during World War 2. There was a court case in the early 1950s that was resolved in favor of a defendant who refused to show his ID to the police. Of course, if people aren't carrying ID, it makes identifying bodies and contacting next of kin that much more confusing and difficult.
> 
> It seems likely that a single woman living in a flat in London in 1949 would not have had her own phone. She would have used a public call box or (if she was lucky) there would have been a phone for the use of all the tenants in the building.
> 
> As far as I know, there's nothing in the canon to indicate whether Harold or Alberta is the blood relation of the Pevensie family. For various reasons I've chosen to make it Harold. I decided to make Alberta manic depressive (bipolar) because in the books she's rather unpleasant and I wanted her to be more sympathetic. There was no lithium treatment in the 1940s, and people with untreated bipolar disorder can be hard to live with, through no fault of their own. 
> 
> Why Reading as the site of the accident? Well, Peter and Edmund are traveling from unearthing the rings in London and are meeting the others somewhere along the way; Eustace and Jill are on the way to school; the Scrubb family lives in Cambridge (see the end of tVotDT); the Pevensies' parents are on the way to Bristol, but we don't know exactly where they're coming from, except that they're taking the same train that the others are taking from Cambridge or thereabouts. My theory is that Peter and Edmund are on their way back to Oxford for the summer term (they're both undergraduates because Peter started university after his stint in the army). So Reading seems about right as a place that's on the way from Cambridge to Bristol and intersects the journey from London to Oxford. Not that I've given this any thought, mind you...
> 
> What is Peggy Pole (neé Blackett) doing in this story? I'm not sure, except that her combination of courage, optimism, and practicality seemed to me to be just what Susan might need.
> 
> I see that the consensus name for the Pevensies' mother seems to be Helen. I have called her Jane, because...I don't know, because I like the name Jane, I guess. 
> 
> And finally, is the analogy of the door to the morgue with the stable door in tLB too obvious, or not obvious enough, or what?

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [shrapnel (of a different kind)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10751238) by [sora_grey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sora_grey/pseuds/sora_grey)




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